11 Oct 2018

African Union - Southern Africa Regional Office (AU-SARO) has this week converged journalists from 12 countries across Africa for a short capacity building course on reporting corruption through investigative journalism in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Officially opening the training yesterday, African Union regional delegate to SADC and COMESA Secretariat, Dr Leopold Ngomo explained that the initiative was born from the conference held in Gaborone in June.

Under the theme; Winning the Fight Against Corruption: a Sustainable Way to Africa’s Transformation, Dr Ngomo opined that African States would never win the fight against the vice that had for many generations crippled the rich, yet so poor continent because it was done in different shapes and forms like NGOs, CSOs, foundations, associations, transnational corporations and development agencies among others with specific agendas of their own, open or hidden.

Dr Ngomo said his organisation’s mandate was therefore to encourage key partners and donors to align their programmes and activities to avoid issues of duplication of efforts, conflict of interest, competition, but pull together in one direction towards the development of Africa.

Dr Ngomo however shared that his organisation was handicapped by the fact that some African States had signed protocols and other legal instruments on such issues as human rights, natural resource management, press freedom,stopping child marriages, among others, but were doing nothing to domesticate such. The inaction, he decried, caused some Africans to lose confidence and become impatient with their governments.

Dr Ngomo has, to this end, advised journalists to develop collaborative platforms to share information, skills, and resources in the fight against corruption both at national and regional level, adding that the former were better placed to sensitise citizens on the evils of corruption and make those involved to account.

Another speaker, editor-in-chief for The Weekly in Mauritius,  Touria Prayag said ironically most of the African states had anti-corruption watch dogs, which were either not doing what they were being paid to do or not empowered enough to execute their mandate which allowed those involved in corruption to do so with impunity.

Ms Prayag however warned journalists that fighting corruption through good, ethical journalism has never been an easy job. She said stories involving corruption were usually the most time consuming, risky and in some instances dangerous, but were not immediately rewarding to a journalist. She said intimidation, harassment, law suits, among others, intended to waste time and discourage further work were some of the challenges journalists had to live with, but should not in any manner prevent them from doing their duty towards society.

Ms Prayag was however impressed that the Gaborone conference had given rise to the Media Association of Southern Africa, which she chairs. She was confident that the platform would give journalists an opportunity to work and support one another and share best practices. Through the forum the experienced journalist encouraged fellows to exchange information, run simultaneous campaigns against corruption and expose corrupt people at regional level. ENDs